


Solitude

by FleaBee



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25893796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: With all the chaotic adventures that have happened over the years, sometimes it's just nice to have a few peaceful moments to oneself.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> First paragraph is from a prompt and not written by me, everything else after is mine.

She filled her lungs full of fresh morning air and exhaled slowly before stepping up barefoot onto the cold ribbon of steel that ran down one side of the worn track bed. Lifting her arms out straight, she tilted her head back, closed her eyes and started walking. The morning chorus of the surrounding woods and a distant tapping of a wood pecker filled her hearing as she carefully padded forward.

It had been a long time since she'd been alone like this. Her shoes in capsules so she didn't have to carry anything. It was hard to be alone when you had two kids with superpowers who knew how to find you no matter where you were. Or had a husband like hers that needed her to fix his training gear when it broke. She imagined it wouldn't be long before her son came out looking for her for some reason, despite her telling them she needed to spend some time away from the family. It was a long time since she'd left the city without any particular goal in mind. It was freeing to be away from everything.

The train track she was walking along had long since been abandoned. It was grown over and even had sections of track that were missing. She just continued walking along barefoot, following the tracks, wondering where they would lead her. What new things would she find on this solo adventure? What new friends would she find? Her first solo adventure had been when she was sixteen. That felt like such a long time ago now, her youngest was sixteen. The age she'd been when she'd left for her first adventure.

So far her daughter had shown no interest in adventuring. She liked being in the city surrounded by people. Her son, on the other hand, was a lot more open to adventuring, though so far he'd never done a solo adventure. All his adventures had been with someone, most of them with his partner in crime, the youngest son of her best friend. The best friend she'd met during her first adventure.

All her close friends she'd met all because of a little orange ball in her parents' house that her mother had picked up at some point because the small orange ball with a star in the centre had looked pretty. The Dragon Balls. They had changed her life, and she felt she was a better person because of them.

She felt the pistol at her side, she'd known how to use a firearm since she was a girl. Her father had felt it was important she knew self-defence when the capsules he'd invented had taken off, and they'd become super-rich in a short amount of time. They'd always been well off, but the amount of money they had now was ridiculous. Anyone looking at her walking down the train tracks wouldn't know that she was the daughter of a multibillionaire and was a millionaire in her own right. Don't get her wrong, she loved her money, she loved her clothes, she especially loved how easy it was to buy the tools and parts she needed for her own experiments and inventions. At times she also liked the simpler things in life.

For old times' sake, she got the original dragon radar out of her pocket and clicked the top to see if it turned on. Not many people realised she was the inventor for the Dragon Ball radar and had many other inventions under her belt. The credit for the majority of her inventions went to her father. It was intentional on her part that her father took the credit when she was younger. She didn't want to be known as a child prodigy while she was still a girl. Her father didn't go out of his way to steal the credit. He was actually oblivious that people were giving him credit for most of her inventions. Her father was a very oblivious man to the outside world. He lived in his own world, and that world consisted of his family, his cat and his inventions. Nothing much outside of that registered to her father.

Her mother was a lot younger than her father. Many thought she was a gold digger when she'd ended up with her dad, not realising she'd been the one who came from money and not her father. Her parents truly did love each other. Her mother was oblivious to the world in a different way. She always saw the best in people. Would open up her home to strangers and help with the homeless and needy in any way she could. She was an outgoing person and not an introvert like her father.

A bug fell from the trees above into her hair. She shrieked as she felt it moving on her head and brushed it to the ground. The birds in the surrounding trees scattered at the noise. The sound of the forest around her became silent. As nice as it was to be outside, she'd never gotten used to bugs, lizards and other animals. She got a compact out and checked her hair and makeup. She was alone in the forest, no one would see her. It still made her feel better having her hair fixed.

Having a son had been a real eye-opener to the world of bugs and insects. He'd find all different types of creatures and bring them home to her and tell her all about them. He was intelligent, like herself and her father. Always soaking up new information to share with the world. His father, her husband, hadn't liked that about their son, considered him weak since his interest was more with science and how things worked rather than fighting. Their daughter also didn't have as much interest in fighting. By the time she was born, her husband had mellowed out a lot. He hadn't minded the fact his daughter was not a warrior like himself. Though he did still encourage their son to be a warrior whenever he could.

Her husband, even years later, she didn't know what drew her to him. Often she wondered, if she made her wish with the Dragon Ball, the reason she was collecting them in the first place, would he have been the perfect boyfriend that she'd wanted to wish for. Or had it been Yamcha, her first boyfriend who honestly she did still love? Her love for her first boyfriend was different than the love for her husband.

She looked up and waved as she discovered she was no longer alone.

"Bulma, what are you doing out here?" Goku asked, landing next to her and walking in step next to her on the rail over.

She smiled, despite being all grown up and being a father and a grandfather, her best friend still had a childlike innocence to him.

"Just enjoying some peace and quiet," she grinned towards her best friend.

Once upon a time, it had been hard to tell they were only two years apart in age. Goku looked a lot younger than he actually was for a long, long time. She wished she got to see the three years when he grew from a child to an adult. He hadn't changed much since then either. Still the same old Goku. Now it was easier to see they were a similar age, by the eyes. While Goku still looked youthful, his eyes told another story.

Goku chuckled. "We don't get much of that anymore. I'm out this way visiting grandpa."

Goku, the little boy who'd been raised on his own by an adoptive grandfather. She wondered about Gohan Son, the man who raised Goku as his grandson. Did he have other family before Goku? Why raise Goku as his son and not his grandson? He was only a few years older than the Ox King, his best friend. The Ox King who's daughter was six years younger than Goku.

"How's Chi Chi and the rest of your family?" Bulma asked.

"They're doing really well. Chi Chi's pestering Gohan and Videl about having another baby, she doesn't seem to care that Panny is the same age as Chi Chi when we got married and had Gohan." Goku smiled. "She wants more grandchildren, not great-grandchildren and doesn't look like we will be getting any from Goten."

"I don't think I'll be getting any from Trunks myself," Bulma acknowledged. "I don't want grandchildren from Bra, she's still a bit young for that yet."

Goku nodded with agreement.

"She's the same age as you when we meet," Goku told her, putting his hands behind his head. "Doesn't time just fly by."

Bulma nodded.

"I'll leave you to your walk," Goku said. "You know how to find me if you need me." He waved and flew into the distance. Bulma waved back.

The sounds of the birds had come back after her scream earlier. She wasn't sure what it was about Goku. He had a presence that calmed the animals down around him. He calmed the people around him, as well. She's been a lovesick teenager with very low morels when she met Goku. She only thought about herself and not the people around her or the fact that her actions could hurt or even kill other people. Then there was Yamcha who had been trying to rob them when they'd first met. Living as a bandit who took advantage of other peoples misfortunes to better himself, or causing those misfortunes. Vegeta, her husband who she would've never met if it hadn't been for Goku. Who had been the cause of one of Yamcha's deaths when they'd still been a couple.

Looking back at what Vegeta had been like when she first knew about him and met him, in reality they should've never ended up together. He'd become the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Who she'd grown to love. If she could have both Vegeta and Yamcha in her life in a romantic sense, she would. That was never going to happen. She got different things out of both her relationships, the only two serious relationships she'd ever had.

She missed going out to dinner and seeing a movie and other couple like activities that she and Yamcha used to do. She and Yamcha still worked together in her lab and had a close friendship despite the fact they were no longer together. They had less fights being friends instead of lovers. That ship was long since sailed, but she still missed that aspect of their relationship at times.

Vegeta was not at all romantic in public, he did his little things when no one else was watching. He didn't like opening up to other people what he believed to be weaknesses that others could exploit. They'd only got together properly when Trunks was six years old. He'd been very distant until Trunks was four, scared that he would make a mistake with his son if he was involved. Knowing that he was a horrible person to have as a role model. He'd been a mercenary who killed for a living, who'd done the jobs that no one else would take. Out in the far reaches of space, he was still a wanted man for the crimes that he'd committed while working for Freiza.

Being a parent hadn't changed just Vegeta, it had changed her as well. She couldn't care just about herself any longer, which had been one of the many issues with hers and Yamcha's relationship. She'd only cared about herself at the time. Raising Trunks had been a very different task to watching over Goku and babysitting Gohan. Even when Gohan had been a child, he'd been extremely independent despite having a mother who was extremely overprotective. He could look after himself at five years old without any assistance from anyone else. Trunks had needed her and still needed her despite being an adult now.

She waved when she saw that her son had found her like she predicted. He landed beside her and didn't say a word. Just walking beside her.

"It's really nice out here, how did you find this place?" her son finally broke the silence after more than half an hour of walking.

"This is close to the area where Goku grew up," Bulma replied. "I found it after he'd died the first time."

She'd gone out to his little cottage, needing to feel close to her oldest friend. The only place that she felt like she was going to get that was the first place she'd met him, in the forest of his grandfather's old house. She'd managed to get lost and found the small railway track. She followed it a short distance till she'd found the road that lead to familiar area. Back then she'd never travelled across the tracks to find out where they came from or lead to. She told the story to her son, how she'd first met Goku and how that lead to her lifelong friendship with not just him but everyone else. While she'd told him bits and pieces, she'd never told him the whole story before.

She'd like to share the story with her daughter, at sixteen her daughter was not yet ready to listen to stories about her mother's youth. If it had been a story about Vegeta's youth, she knew that her daughter would pay attention.

She'd come out here to be alone. Despite not being alone any longer, it was nice spending the time with her son, sharing her story.

"I wish that I had stories like that I could share. Goten and I have known each other all our lives. All our friends we knew because they are children of your friends." Trunks said with longing.

"Maybe it's time you went out and made your own adventure, so that one day you have stories to tell your own children." In the past, whenever she'd hinted at grandchildren, her son would tell her it would never happen.

"First I'd have to meet a girl I'd want to marry," her son replied. "Maybe Goten and I can go out on an adventure together. I can't imagine an adventure without him. Any girl who wants to marry me would have to accept the friendship we have."

Like Vegeta had to accept her friendship with Goku and Yamcha, something that was never going to change. They were important to her, and she would not give up her past friendships.

She pulled her son close. "First you can have an adventure with your mother. I still want to see where this train track leads, the old fashioned way. Without two feet on the ground walking at a normal humans pace."

"Sure mum, I'm happy to have an adventure with you," Trunks smiled, taking her hand like when he'd been a small boy.

She continued holding her son close as she continued walking down the train track. Trunks telling his own stories about some of the mischief he and Goten got into as children. She was glad that she had a relationship that was close enough with her son that he would share with her like that. As much as she loved her parents, she never had that type of relationship with them.

The tracks came to an end just a bit further away. An old mill next to the end of the tracks, long since abandoned much like the tracks themselves.

"Where are you going?" Trunks asked when she turned around walking the way she'd came.

"Now to see what is down the other end of the tracks." She wouldn't stop when she got to the end of the road this time.

Her son coming with her. Joining her in the peaceful walk. Once again, in silence.


End file.
